1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic parts, in particular to multi-layer ceramic electronic parts having a structure in which a plurality of internal electrodes are disposed throughout a ceramic layer in a ceramic element.
2. Description of the Related Art
One type of surface-mounted type ceramic electronic part, for example as shown in FIG. 3, has a rectangular parallelepiped-shaped ceramic element 33 in which a plurality of electrodes (internal electrodes) 32 are disposed so as to face each other via a ceramic layer 31. External electrodes 34 are disposed at opposite ends of the electronic part and are conductively coupled with respective internal electrodes 32, to form a multi-layer ceramic capacitor 35.
This type of ceramic electronic part has become increasingly miniaturized, which has resulted in an extremely compact ceramic electronic part such as the ceramic element 33 shown in FIG. 2, whose length (L) is 1.0 mm or less and height (H) and width (W) are 0.5 mm or less. Also, in such a ceramic electronic part, the distance (thickness of a ceramic outer layer portion 36) t.sub.1 from the internal electrode 32 (32a) of the outermost layer to the surface of the ceramic element 33 is very small at 0.10 mm or less.
However, in the field of miniaturization described above, ceramic electronic parts in which the thickness t.sub.1 of the ceramic outer layer portion 36 is small have little mechanical strength (resistive strength etc.), and in a case where they are handled in bulk (for example by a chip mounting device), cracks C in the ceramic element occur easily due to mechanical impacts, as shown in FIGS. 4(a) and (b). Thus, for example, cracks C can occur across a plurality of internal electrodes 32, resulting in the problem that the desired electrical characteristics become unattainable.